


Recurring

by poor_sickies



Series: Bad Things Happen [5]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Shiro (Voltron) is Missing, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 19:15:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16311083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poor_sickies/pseuds/poor_sickies
Summary: "It’s a fruitless trip, again. He skips dinner, opting to flop onto his bed face first with the armor still on. He feels like sobbing, but stops himself. There’s no energy for that. His bed feels like a rocking boat, swaying from side to side, and Keith closes his eyes, giving in to the feeling."Shiro disappears. Keith isn't one to give up.Prompt: definitely just a cold





	Recurring

It’s hard to tell if this is worse than Kerberos.

Shiro had vanished, with nothing in the black lion to imply his death. No broken body, no blood, no hole he could have been sucked out through, not even signs of struggle. It was like Shiro had gotten up and gone for a walk, even leaving the black bayard intact in its slot, as if there was some kind of superior purpose.

If there was, Keith couldn’t find it.

Disappearing like this (and keeping in mind that they were all in space, and that many weird and seemingly impossibly things were apparently possible, all due to Voltron and this castle and the vastness of mysterious things that happened in the universe), there is still hope of Shiro being alive. Keith clings to it like a drowning sailor to a lifeboat. Even when the waves are violent and unforgiving.

But if Shiro is really alive, that also means he could be anywhere.

And the Universe is way too big of a place to look thoroughly.

Nevertheless, Keith never skips a day of going out with Black, scanning large areas, to look for him, for some clue, for something. He had started with the place Zarkon’s ship had been, and then moved to other nearby quadrants, before outright passing around Galra prisoner ships looking for him. The team would free the imprisoned people, but Keith’s face fell every time Shiro wasn’t there.

Everything is all the more painful when Keith remembers Shiro’s wish. It wasn’t anything new for Shiro to make jokes about death, even if Keith (and pretty much everyone else around him) hated it. But Keith tried to forgive it, he tried. Shiro had a terminal disease, and people cope how they can. But something chilled Keith to the bone whenever Shiro implied Keith would be next in line for the position of black paladin.

 _Why_? Why was Shiro careful to the point of trying to tie loose ends in case something happened to him? He seemed so certain sometimes, and it pissed Keith off to no end. How dare he?! After Kerberos, after all the pain Keith had gone through…how could he just do it like it was nothing? How can Shiro just tell that the universe has it out for him?

Keith had known about Shiro’s disease after listening behind closed doors. What was it that he had missed this time?

He hasn’t had a good night’s sleep since the battle with Zarkon.

Last time Shiro left him, after he punched Iverson and was dragged out of the Garrison grounds by two guards, he had been on his own. To deal with the pain, heartbreak, and with himself. But he managed, between a few nights of drinking himself to sleep, going out to the desert to look for something, anything he could do with himself (and even then it had led him back to Shiro), he had managed it somehow. He can do with himself, by himself.

But Keith has a team to lead now.

It’s the biggest pair of shoes he has had to fill, ever. He lacks the competence, or empathy, or knowledge that takes to be a good leader. He’s rash, impatient, insecure.

Even being sent off to space, fighting aliens and freeing people, that he could do. Shiro was there for him to fall back on.

But now, he feels like the fate of the universe has been given to him, a mere child, who is too broken to do anything with it. It’s too much. He can’t do this. It’s so painfully obvious how unlike Shiro he is. And that just makes his heart ache even worse.

Waking up like this is no longer uncommon for Keith - head throbbing, eyes swollen, throat sore from crying, and that heavy weight in his chest, that comes after realizing that no, this isn’t a nightmare. That he really lost Shiro, again.

If Keith was back at the shack in the desert, he would have rolled over in bed, laid under the covers and tried to sleep.

But he isn’t. He’s the leader of Voltron, and he has his team counting on him.

He takes a deep breath and gets up, body aching and feeling like lead, but no more than usual. The last few days have been brutal, and he has been waking up every day with sore muscles. It’s part of the job, and he has no choice but to embrace it.

Sometimes, when it gets too bad at night, he thinks of picking up a heating pack to soothe the soreness, but last night he didn’t, and he’s certainly paying the price now.

He drags himself through the hallways, dressed in his workout clothes. He’s not exactly sure why he’s forcing himself to work out now, when he has one more hour to sleep before the others wake up, but it’s not like he can go back to sleep anyway. And training gets his mind off things. Exhausting his body and mind is one of the very few ways to distract himself, and he’s not going to just stay in bed because he’s feeling worse than normal. Keith has never been one to give in. 

Forty minutes later, he’s drenched in sweat and not feeling much better. He pants, hunched over, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. His head feels numb, hazy with something he can’t quite place, and breathing is harder than normal.

But he can already hear the food goo machine in the kitchen, meaning Hunk is up, and there’s no time left to rest. The day has started. 

The ship keeps travelling through this galaxy. Sometimes, Keith looks through the glass, at the bridge, and despite knowing that he’s going at insane speeds, it all seems so slow, so distant. Planets pass through them, big and bright, and it all seems filtered in slow motion.

The day goes uneventful. He takes a shower after his workout, hoping the hot water will soothe his aching muscles, but it doesn’t. If anything, it leaves him feeling heavier and more sluggish. His throat still hurts too, and he notices, because the feeling doesn’t usually linger for too long. Today, though, swallowing makes it sting and burn.

It’s before dinner, when he’s about to go on his daily lookout for Shiro, that his nose starts getting clogged. He sniffles, trying to breathe through it, but it’s no use. He’s also strangely cold, the paladin armor not enough to block the cold air inside the lion, and he runs his hands through his arms. He’s sweating under the black suit, but he still feels cold.

It’s a fruitless trip, again. He skips dinner, opting to flop onto his bed face first with the armor still on. He feels like sobbing, but stops himself. There’s no energy for that. His bed feels like a rocking boat, swaying from side to side, and Keith closes his eyes, giving in to the feeling.

He’s out in a matter of minutes.

*

Someone comes in eventually to turn off the lights, and Keith knows this because they were on when he fell asleep.

The ache in his throat from earlier has developed into a burning sensation, through his neck all the way to the back of his mouth, and his nose his now completely clogged up.

The skin on his stomach and chest are damp with sweat, and when he manages to sit up, the cold air hits him violently, making him shiver. The armor feels heavy and way too hard, so he slips out of it, piece by piece, and peels the black under suit off of him. He quickly curls up under the covers, sighing at the sudden and welcome warmth, and drifts off to sleep again.

Keith doesn’t know how long it is until he’s up again, but he wakes up and it’s too hot.

His hair clings to his forehead and neck, and his skin is sticky all around where the blankets touch it. He lets out a groan when the pounding in his head gets worse as he turns to the other side. He sniffles again. His nose wants to start dripping, and swallowing doesn’t help either.

Well he’s definitely sick. Maybe not _sick_ sick. Probably just a cold. He can do with a cold. It’s what he thinks, before rolling over and realizing it’s already morning, and he doesn’t have an hour to go back to sleep.

*

The shower doesn’t make him feel worse this time. He feels cleaner after washing away his sweat, even if he does so curled up in a ball on the shower floor. Standing up takes too much effort, and sitting like this, letting the hot water drip and run down his back feels pretty relaxing. The hot air helps with his nose too, and even his throat hurts a little less.

But he knows he can’t spend half an hour in there, so he turns off the water suddenly, trying to make himself leave. Instead, he lets out a whine and curls up on himself further, trying to preserve some heat. He’s wet and shivering like a dog in the wind, and getting up feels like a herculean effort. Thankfully, his towel is right there, and provides at least some comfort.

Keith glances at himself in the mirror before getting dressed.

He looks paler than usual, with dark circles around his eyes. He has been getting skinnier, going by how his cheeks look sunk in. He needs to shave too, because he hasn’t in a while, and his face doesn’t grow enough hair to pull off that kind of look yet. With two quick drags of his razor through his chin and upper lip, his face is hairless again, but he doesn’t look much better. Better leave it to Lance to be the pretty one, at least today. It’s a lost battle for now.

The others notice it over breakfast. And despite how easy and tempting it would be to just say he’s fine, he instead admits he’s got a cold. Keith is aware of how he looks, and he definitely wouldn’t get away with saying he’s in perfect health.

“Maybe you should go rest a little,” Hunk suggests with a concerned frown, as he hands him his plate of breakfast goo, “we’re still trying to track Lotor down, so it’s not like there’s anything too urgent to do.”

Lance chuckles, “Only, like, saving the universe.”

“We can always train a little with the gladiator,” Allura points out, finished with her breakfast, “just because we don’t know Lotor’s whereabouts, doesn’t mean we can slack off.”

“Of course not,” Hunk insists, “I was just saying that if Keith’s not feeling so well, he probably shouldn’t be up and around training instead of getting some rest.”

 “I could do with a little extra nap,” Lance shrugs, before stretching his arms above his head, yawning, “always nice to get some sleep.”

“No,” Keith cuts him out. “We’ll do the gladiator. We need to keep ourselves in top shape if we want to defeat Lotor.”

He stands up, and shoves his chair forward.

“I’ll be in the training room,” he announces, turning his heels to leave, “hurry up and finish your breakfast.”

“He didn’t even touch his food…” Hunk frowns, staring at Keith’s full plate.

*

Keith walks outside the dining hall, and once he’s far enough, almost by the training room, he stops, one hand against the wall. He’s shivering, despite the isolating fabric of his jacket. He breathes through his mouth, panting, because no air can go through his clogged up nose, which in turn irritates his throat. His head pounds, shooting up with pain every time he tries to move. He lets himself slide to the floor, slowly.

There’s no time to rest.

Shiro had properly gone through all the stressful work of being a leader, and he had been dealing with phantom pains and post traumatic stress. There’s no way Keith will allow himself to be put down because of a glorified cold.  

He allows himself to catch his breath, before standing up, and walking to the training room. He’s able to drag himself to the middle of the room, to wait for the others, when the sudden sound of the blaring alarms almost knocks him off his feet.

They’re being attacked.

*

Keith isn’t exactly sure if it’s a sudden surge of adrenaline or if he’s momentarily feeling better for some reason, but in less than five minutes, he’s dressed in his paladin armor at the bridge.

“It’s Lotor,” Pidge says, recognizing the ship’s signature, “he’s just shooting randomly, but we have our particle barrier up.”

 “He’s not shooting _randomly_ ,” Lance points out, “why would he? He’s taunting us, like last time. Wants to make us come out.”

“I agree,” Hunk says, “but what do we do? Do we go in the Lions and fight? Do we just ignore him? Can we do that?”

Keith sighs. The lights are way too bright, and the rush of adrenaline from earlier was short lived. The dizziness come back full force, and he has to sit down.

He lowers himself onto one of the pilot chairs and puts his head in his hands.

“ _No_ ,” he says, voice hoarse and slightly nasal, “we have to go after him. We’ve been looking for him for almost two weeks.”

“Our defenses aren’t at their best right now,” Coran points out, “we have the particle barrier, but I don’t know how much longer it will hold up…”

“But if we don’t get him now, who knows when we’ll find him again-“

“Well it seems it’s _him_ who’s pursuing _us_ now, so-“

The voices warp and mix in Keith’s head, making his ears ring. It’s a lot, too much, there’s too much noise, too much light-

_“Just…shut up and let me think!”_

His teeth chatter, jaws clacking as his body shakes with shivers. There are beads of cold sweat forming on his forehead, and his skin is pale and clammy.

“Keith!”

Hunk runs to his side, one hand supporting his back. Keith closes his eyes. The others keep moving around him, but he can’t quite focus on their voices. His body feels too close and too distant at the same time, and he tries to focus on Hunk’s fingers running through his back.

_“Allura, wormhole out!”_

_“Can’t he go in a cryopod? He’s…”_

_“…afraid not, they’re only…”_

_“…get it…around the barrier….”_

“Hey.”

Lance taps his knee twice, looking up at him.

“You with us now?”

Keith swallows, and slowly lets air out through his mouth. His throat is tickling, and he feels something slowly building up deep in his chest.

“We could have g-“

He’s unable to finish his sentence before he’s hit by a violent coughing fit, that throws him forward, as his throat spasms, sending tears to his eyes. His cheeks and ears burn, and he’s certain that they’re beet red, even if he can’t see them.

“Damnit Keith, why didn’t you tell us you were this sick…”

He catches his breath, but slumps backward against Hunk, exhausted.

“It’s not that bad,” he tries to say, but his voice cracks like it did when he was thirteen, “just a cold-“

“Enough with this nonsense!” Allura shakes her head, and promptly hoists Keith over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

The sudden movement is too much on his head and Keith lets out a whine. But that doesn’t faze Allura. She keeps stomping through the halls, carrying his weight like it was nothing, followed by the other paladins and Coran in a small procession.

Once in Keith’s room, she dumps him on the bed, as gently as she can.

It’s a little warmer here, but he still shakes, and tries to make a grab for the blanket, weakly.

“He has a fever,” Pidge points out, touching Keith’s forehead with the back of her hand.

“We don’t have meds for this,” Coran says sadly, “the only thing we can do for now is let him rest.”

“Yeah, at least now he seems to agree,” Lance nods in Keith’s direction.

“We should probably get him out of his armor though,” Hunk suggests, “that can’t be comfortable.”

“I can do it,” Keith mumbles, voice muffled against the pillow, and starts removing his wrist pieces. The others take off the leg armor, and then the chest plate, until he’s only in his black suit. Clumsily, he wraps himself in his blanket and buries his head in his pillow.

“Feel better,” they say, as they turn off the lights to let him sleep.

*

“I brought you tea.”

Keith opens his eyes, slowly. It’s still dark, but the door is open, and his eyes are adjusting to the lights from the hall.

Lance is there, holding a mug, sitting on the edge of the mattress.

Keith rubs a hand over his eyes. It’s so hot. Thinking of hot tea makes him nauseous. He doesn’t want it.

Then he glances at the clock, and shoots awake.

With sluggish moves, he swings his legs out of the mattress and gets up.

“K-Keith! Where are you going?!”

Keith walks past him, slow but determined.

They would normally have dinner in an hour. How could he have slept through almost an entire day? It’s late, but not too late. He’s dead set on reaching the hangar. His legs move on muscle memory, because with the lights and walls swaying like they are, there’s no way Keith recognizes where he is. But he needs to keep going.

Black sits in his usual spot, particle barrier activated. Keith keeps going, teeth chattering as he shivers, eyes half lidded, the lights too bright for his head. Doesn’t matter. He stands in front of the particle barrier, and it doesn’t come down.

“Let me in,” he says, determined, despite his cracking voice, and knocks twice. The lion doesn’t budge, and neither does the barrier.

“Keith…” Lance trails off behind him, heart breaking at the realization.

“Come on! I gotta – we have to find Shiro! Come on!” He screams, and Lance winces at how his voice fails him. Keith doesn’t seem bothered by it. “He was your pilot! Let me in! We have to find him! Come on!”

Keith knocks more desperately, but the lion only turns his head to the side, effectively rejecting him. He sinks to his knees with a thud, head in his hands.

“ _Come on…_ ”

Hunk and Pidge are standing by the door, appalled.

Keith had been angry, depressed, irritable and quiet before. They had all seen that. How could they miss something like this? He had overworked himself to this state of sickness and despair, and they had let it happen.

Lance walks closer and places a hand on his shoulder, and feels Keith shiver underneath it. From the way his voice had cracked, he’s pretty certain Keith isn’t just cold. He kneels next to him, and wraps both arms around his shoulders.

Keith sniffles, hands still pushing the barrier, but eventually buries his face on Lance’s shoulder. Lance’s shirt gets wet in a matter of minutes. Keith is slumped forward, without any strength to move by himself, still shaking and crying quietly. Lance rubs his back in soft circles, and that’s the only thing that seems to be working.

“Black is right,” Lance says after a while, Keith with his face still hidden in his shirt, “you’re not in any shape to go out.”

“Exactly,” Hunk adds, coming closer too, “you need to go back to bed and rest.”

Keith shakes his head. “I need to-“

He breaks into a coughing fit, immediately backing away from Lance to cough into his own elbow. The crackling deep in his chest can be heard from where Hunk is standing, and it sounds anything but pleasant.

“I – I gotta look for him. _Please_ -“

“I’ll go.”

It’s Pidge, walking closer.

“I’ll look for him, Keith. I’ll look for him while you rest,” she declares, determined.

Keith takes a while until he looks up again, but nods, defeated.

He lets himself be picked up by Hunk, and carried to his bed. Everything is confusing and hazy, but he feels something cold in his forehead, and it soothes the headache a little. Blankets are tucked around his hips and shoulders, and the warmth consumes him.

He lets go.

*

The fever goes down, to everyone’s relief.

Keith tries not to show his disappointment when pidge comes back an hour later, on her own. He still thanks her with a sad smile.

Hunk makes him more tea, from an Altean plant recommended by Coran, and everyone makes rounds to his room to bring him more. Eventually, someone helps him into his pajamas, and brings out the sweat soaked black suit to the laundry.

He’s feverish in the middle of the night, again, but not disoriented. Thankfully Pidge had remembered of bringing him tissues earlier, because all the sneezing and coughing take way too much energy from him for him to go out to the bathroom to get toilet paper.

The coughing fits are relentless, and not that the mucus has effectively settled in his chest, it’s a lot worse. His throat, on the other hand, is past the stage of burning, and into the stage of hurting like hell.

He doesn’t get more than four hours of sleep, and when he wakes up again, his abdomen hurts from the strain of coughing for so long, and he desperately needs something to drink to soothe his throat.

It’s not like he’s gonna be able to get more sleep soon, so he gets up with a quick grunt, and dresses his red paladin robe. Lance had found it for him, in his own closet, and Keith has to admit, it’s comfortable and warm, and at least until the next bout of fever hits, he’s glad to have it.

There’s tea in a thermic container on the kitchen table, so he pours a mug to himself and puts it back again. He drags himself through the lounge, mug in his hands, and takes a seat on the ring of couches.

He adjusts a blanket around him, and warms up his hands on the mug. It’s still too hot to drink, probably, so he waits a little and puts it down.

He closes his eyes and tries to massage his neck with his fingers, before breaking into another coughing fit.

His throat hurts so bad.

Touching around his neck, his fingers feel slight bumps where his lymph nodes are. The swelling explain why it feels so terrible, but massaging them doesn’t seem to help, unfortunately.

After a while, he drinks from the mug of tea, with careful, small sips, and tries to bite back a frustrated groan. The tea is supposed to help, and it does, to keep him warm, but it hurts so bad when it goes down his throat.

“Feeling any better?”

Lance asks from behind him, his tone gentle but slightly teasing. Keith sighs.

“Not really,” he tries to say, but only part of it is audible, his voice cracking and hoarse, not much better than yesterday.

“It’s what you get for trying to pretend you’re not sick for almost two days, big leader,” Lance chuckles, turning around the sofa and taking a seat.

Keith rolls his eyes and takes another sip. His whole throat feels like it has been burned with a torch, and the only reason he keeps drinking his tea is to keep hydrated and feel warm.

“It wasn’t _that_ bad.”

Lance laughs.

“No, we only had to carry you to bed twice, one of those when you were practically delirious…”

Keith sighs. He would argue, but he’s in far too much pain to do so. And even if he wanted to, it’s not like Lance is wrong.

If Shiro had been here… well, Keith would have gotten the longest lecture about taking care of himself.

His chest aches, and it’s not just from coughing. What he wouldn’t give to get one lecture from Shiro right now.

Lance must notice something, because he inches closer and puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, come on now, no need to be like that,” he says, “one time I broke my ankle riding a kart and my brother had to drag me out of there kicking and screaming because I wanted to go another round…well, it was too cold, and I wasn’t feeling my foot, but when I realized later that…”

Keith leans back and lets Lance go on with his story. He’s missing half of it, but he’s not being too loud, and having company feels so much nicer than being on his own.

“…so yeah,” Lance finishes, “no shame in it. We’ll carry you anytime you need.”

Keith chuckles. “Thanks, Lance.”

Lance picks up another blanket from the stack, and lays it folded across his lap, patting it twice. “You wanna try and get some more sleep? It’s still early.”

And, yes, maybe his fever is hitting again, but Keith still lays his head on Lance’s lap and lets himself be taken care of. Lance’s stories lull him to sleep, and he feels comfortable. Safe.


End file.
